


Lucid

by muse_in_absentia



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Dreaming, Fires, M/M, Whiskey - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-12 05:27:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17461466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muse_in_absentia/pseuds/muse_in_absentia
Summary: When Sirius Black finally meets the man of his dreams, he doesn't expect it to be literally in his dreams.





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the inaugural RS Fireside Tales Fest, which has been a HUGE blast. Thank you to everyone involved for making it so much fun!
> 
> A huge thank you to M for the amazing beta job, and also for suggesting the brilliant title.
> 
> Prompt below:  
> 

The fog was bringing up goose flesh on Sirius’ arms and he stopped walking to rub at them. He drew a deep breath and it tasted like frost, like winter settling into his bones, into his blood. He blew the frost out and watched it condense in the air, freezing into the fog and turning his vision into nothing but mist for a moment.

A quick step forward, through his breath still lingering in the air, and Sirius could see the line of trees climbing up out of the earth like barren fingers, skeletal and raw. The rows of them were pale and stark in the rising moonlight, lining the ambling pathway, meandering out of sight.

When Sirius blinked, the world hazed over briefly before refocusing. He drew in another freezing breath and let it out slowly. The wind carded through his hair, icy fingers scratching at his scalp, the back of his neck, down his shoulders. 

He couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t dressed for the cold. In fact, he couldn’t figure out _if_ he was dressed for the cold; every time he tried to focus on what he was wearing he got the vague impression that he was dressed, but nothing more concrete than that Any sense that his situation might be strange slipped away before he could try and grasp at it.

A couple of people walked past Sirius, hazy, washed in blues and greys; silhouettes slinking past without making a sound. Ghosts of little substance whispering past in the peripheral, barely more than shadows flickering at Sirius’ consciousness.

Just at the edges of his awareness, there was a trickling sensation running down his spine that he had no idea where he was or how he got there, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. Every time he tried to look it crackled away, as substantial as the fog. Everything he tried to focus on immediately became vague impressions that somehow his brain was interpreting as full details, despite the fact that none of his senses could make concrete contact with anything verifiable.

It wasn’t until he tried to walk towards the rows of trees, thinking he would lean against one and catch the breath that the cold was stealing away, the trees not getting any closer to him, that Sirius realized he was dreaming. It fell on him all at once, and suddenly the haze flickered away, everything crystalline sharp, brittle. The trees were still in pale shades of blue and grey, but now it was because it was near dark out, not because he couldn’t see them. The silhouettes were still shapeless humanoid shadows, but now it was because they were all bundled up in heavy winter clothes.

Another gust of wind swirled the fog through the trees and left Sirius shivering and flashing an impatient glare at his own bare arms.

“I couldn’t have dreamt myself warm?” he grumbled to himself, the words sounding thin and tinny to his own ears. He closed his eyes and tried to think warm thoughts, wondering when dreams gained the ability to be cold.

_In his bed Sirius rolled over, blinking blearily at the clock, which read 1:42AM. He groaned and tugged the blankets up to his chin despite the unseasonably warm spring they were having, shivered, and fell back to sleep._

When he opened his eyes again the trees were much closer, twilight blue leaves dripping down over a black river of pavement, rustling with the breeze, no longer freezing, but only cool.

Whirling around, Sirius could see that the point he guessed he had been at before, seeming to be about the right distance away, was actually the middle of the road that ran alongside the pathway. A car ambled by slowly, all strange angles and muted beiges, and Sirius shuddered, thinking that if a car had come by while he had been standing there before he would have been hurt or killed, dream or not. He wasn’t sure where the thought came from, but it felt right, the same way his dream had felt cold earlier when dreams shouldn’t be cold, or hot, or tangible in any way.

He picked up a small rock near his feet, turning it over in his hands, letting the sharp edges abrade his fingertips and marveling at the fact that he could feel it at all. Then, abruptly, he flung it towards one of the trees where it hit with a satisfying _thwack_ before skittering down to the pavement, the skipping plunking sound fading as the rock bounced twice then stopped.

One of the silhouettes stopped and turned to look at the rock, then towards Sirius. They didn’t seem to see Sirius and took a step back away from where the rock had come flying from before turning and scurrying off at a much faster pace, faded briefcase hitting their leg with every step. Sirius watched until the person – and he had to assume they were people or he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else – disappeared out of sight. They didn’t fade away as people often did in dreams, but just walked around the corner like any normal waking person.

“Okay,” Sirius muttered out loud, just to ground himself in something familiar, even if it was just his own voice. “If I’m dreaming I should be able to get closer to those trees just by wanting to be closer to those trees.”

He glared at the trees in question, but they neither got any closer or any less hazy, despite the fact that most of the fog had dissipated with the warmer weather. After a moment of wishing the trees closer and wondering why it didn’t work the same as it did in all of his other dreams, Sirius started walking, just to see if he could reach the trees through any means. Slowly, the ground seemed to disappear between them.

As he reached the trees he could just make out that what he originally thought were leaves were barely buds, spring settling into the bones of the trees and blooming out the tips.

“Did it change seasons just because I complained about being cold?” Sirius frowned and stopped walking. “That seems out of place with how this dream is working.” Looking down at the dew that was collecting on his boots, clear beads refracting the sunrise just breaking across the sky in muted pastels, Sirius couldn’t help but scuff his toes together, watching the colors streak out in smears and fade as they evaporated. “In fact, nothing about this dream is normal.”

He was just about to start walking again when a person came out of seemingly nowhere and ran right _through_ him. The harried person didn’t seem to notice anything strange, except to shiver slightly and tug their overcoat a little tighter, scurrying down the path and on to wherever their day was taking them. Sirius, however, felt like his insides had gotten stuck, tugged forwards slightly and then sliding back to him, treacle slow. Stumbling to the side he wretched a couple of times, leaning on the rough bark of one of the trees, but managed to only have to spit out a small amount of bile.

Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand he uncurled his spine, feeling oddly lightheaded and still using the tree to hold himself up. A few gulps of cool air and his head stopped spinning enough that he could risk trying to hold himself up again.

“I’m going to have to pay more attention,” he grumbled to himself, glaring in the direction the person who had walked through him had disappeared into.

When he looked up, however, he found himself meeting the eyes of a young man who was staring straight at him.

Sirius blinked a couple of times, hard, but the young man continued to watch him, the dim light of pre-dawn making his eyes colorless, but no less intense for it.

The first thought Sirius had was that this man couldn’t have been more his type if he had designed him himself. He wanted to run his fingers through the fine hair, feel the slight stubble on his cheek.

The second thought he had was that if this was the only person he had been granted the ability to see in detail there had to be a reason.

He was hoping that that reason was because he got to touch. _What’s the point of having a beautiful man appear in a dream where all of my senses are working at full capacity if I don’t get to touch?_ Was the last thing that Sirius thought, even going so far as to reach his hand out before everything flickered away, going black.

Squeezing his eyes shut hard for a moment, Sirius opened them again hoping to still be looking at the young man from his dream, but not at all surprised to find that was back in his bed, the blankets tangled around his ankles, his heart beating wildly and the clock reading 3:17AM.


	2. Chapter Two

It took Sirius nearly seven minutes to find a pen and a scrap of paper in the junk heap of a kitchen that James kept swearing he was going to clean someday. Sirius didn’t have much hope for that, but he wasn’t about to offer to do it instead.

Finally, he gave up on the paper, grabbed a crumpled candy wrapper, scribbled a quick note that he was going out, and taped it to the coffee pot where he was sure James would see it first thing in the morning.

Then he stepped into his boots without bothering to lace them up, grabbed his keys and slipped out the door, hoping he hadn’t woken James.

The sky was the same color of pre-dawn blue as the dream he had been having, and Sirius had to actually stop and look around to make sure he recognized where he was. But no, there was the broken pot that had once held Mrs. Mulcoughlen’s small gerbera daisies before the Wilkenson’s youngest had kicked it over. And the ornate gate on the Trinkler place that reminded Sirius a little too much of his parents. And the door to the building still squeaked exactly like he expected it to.

“One little dream and you’re starting to doubt yourself?” Sirius shook his head hard, talking to himself just so he had someone to talk to. He had waited two hours after he had woken, hoping that maybe James would wake up early, but that was generally a futile wish, and eventually he had given in and gotten dressed, planning on walking until he couldn’t walk anymore. Keeping his feet moving sometimes helped his brain to stop moving.

Turning left, Sirius started walking up the street, only to stop and turn around. He always took the same route, and today as the air settled thick around him and he couldn’t quite convince himself he was awake, he decided that that needed a change. 

Without having any idea where he was going, Sirius turned back the way he came and started walking, feet thudding on the pavement in a way that settled his brain and jarred his knees. He started counting steps and ignoring his surroundings until the sky was starting to flush and the heavy feeling in the air started to dissipate slowly, leaving his breathing labored but not pressing anymore.

The ringing in his pocket was what finally got Sirius to pull up, however, skin tacky with exertion. It took him three tries to get his cell phone out of his pocket while staring hard at the ground so he didn’t have to see where he had ended up. If he didn’t know, it couldn’t seep into his brain and trip his thoughts over into something tangible and mutable again.

“Yeah, James.”

“I just wanted to know if you were coming in to work this morning, or if I should call McKinnon in.” James voice was too loud and brittle through the phone speakers, and Sirius winced slightly, his lack of sleep falling on him and leaving him wanting to do nothing more than go back to bed for the next seventy-two hours.

“I’ll be there.” He frowned and glanced around, finally, trying to figure out how far he had walked, and in which direction. “What time is it again?”

James’ sigh was more than answer enough.

“Never mind, I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

James hung up without saying goodbye, but Sirius figured he deserved that. A quick glance at the clock on his phone and he sighed himself, calling for a taxi, because there was no way he was going to get to work in twenty minutes if he had to keep walking. 

It took three minutes of his allotted time just to figure out enough landmarks to be able to tell the taxi where to find him, and Sirius made it to the small distillery that he and James owned with two minutes to spare. Sirius rubbed at his eyes and let himself into the front room, blinking heavily in the dim lighting.

The Hind and Hound distillery was a large old wooden structure that had the back rooms reinforced with aluminum to withstand the heat of the large stills, and the smell of the mash always reminded Sirius of sourdough. The heat settled into his bones and immediately made him lethargic, so he sank into the chair settled behind the till in the corner. Tipping backwards he almost crashing into the custom carved wood display shelves that showcased all the different varieties of whiskies they made. 

When James had first suggested, six years ago, that they pool what they both had left of their inheritances and buy the old distillery from the last of the Fletcher family, who had basically been using it to brew moonshine, Sirius had thought he was insane. But James had a nose for this sort of thing, and they had slowly built the place up to be one of the top-rated micro distilleries. Sirius loved the place, even if he was more at home sitting behind the till talking with customers and sampling James’ latest creation.

They didn’t open for another three hours, but James and the other workers that did that actual distilling started almost when the sun came up. Sirius would normally use the time to dust the shelves, put out the display bottles and sometimes even wipe down the faux whiskey barrel wood paneling that made up the walls. Today he didn’t have the energy for any of that, but he did remember to check the till to make sure it had enough cash in it to make change for customers. 

He was just finishing counting the cash drawer when James came in from the back, shirtsleeves already rolled up, some flecks of grain stuck in his hair.

“Bugger, it was delivery day, wasn’t it?” Sirius dropped his head into his hands feeling the beginnings of a headache settling at the base of his skull.

James didn’t answer, just set a large cup of coffee on the counter next to the till. “You get one more after that one, and then no more coffee in the front room.”

“Thanks.”

Leaning against the counter, James sighed and watched while Sirius drank half the coffee in one go, burning his mouth and immediately ignoring it. Finally, once Sirius had set the coffee cup back down and barely fought off the urge to let his head thunk onto the counter, James reached over and ruffled Sirius’ hair. “I know how you get when you can’t sleep, plonker, just try not to fall asleep at the till, yeah?”

Sirius really wanted to tell James that he wasn’t the boss, that Sirius owned half the company, but the truth of it was that James was simply better at this. Sirius was good with people, which is why he ran the front end. But James made all the flavor choices, the distilling choices, he sourced all the ingredients, and did all the bookkeeping at the end of the day. Sirius was just the pretty face to sell the product, and most of the time he was okay with that. Oh, and he did design the new logo that was on their labels and the sign out front, a stag and large dog standing beneath a tall oak tree. He claimed it was to represent their barrels, James said it was because it was the only tree he could draw. They were both a little right, but he would never tell James that.

“Just let me sneak into the back for more coffee once in a while and I’ll do my best.”

“What was it that kept you up this time?”

Sirius bristled for a minute, but there was no judgement on James’ face, even though Sirius was probably going to be useless for the rest of the day. He closed his eyes, even the dim lighting hurting his head now that he had stopped moving long enough for his lack of sleep to properly catch up with him.

“Just a strange dream. Nothing to worry about.”

“Are you sure?”

Sirius nodded, feeling the weight of the untruth, the strange dream that was more unsettling for how normal and clear it was, pressing down on him until he felt that he would never move from his seat again.

“Well, if you're sure, Dearborn and the Prewetts would probably appreciate my not spending the rest of the morning taking care of your sorry arse. You going to be okay if I get back to work?”

Tipping his coffee cup at James in mock salute, Sirius nodded again, and drained the rest of his coffee before pretending he was looking for his dusting rag for the shelves. James snorted, clearly not believing him for a second, flipped him off, and headed to the back room to, supposedly, check on the storage of their ingredient shipment that had come in that morning.

Sirius placed his phone next to his empty coffee cup, set an alarm for an hour, and shut his eyes. He had barely closed them, however, when his alarm started blaring immediately. Frowning, Sirius picked up his phone to see what was wrong with the alarm, but realized almost immediately that nothing was wrong with it at all. The entire hour had passed and he felt like he had done nothing more than blink his eyes.

Sighing, Sirius leveraged himself up off his seat and went to unlock the case with the display bottles, samples, and expensive smaller batch stuff to put it out for the day.

Three hours, only four customers, and two more smuggled cups of coffee later and Sirius was fighting to keep his eyes open. The heat from the stills was wrapping around him, gently smothering him until unconsciousness seemed inevitable.

The door chime tinkled, making Sirius want to rip it off the ceiling. James had insisted that they needed something to get Sirius’ attention when customers came in, and Sirius hadn’t argued. Right now, he was wishing he had.

He plastered a smile on his face and hoped his eyes weren’t too bloodshot, but when he turned around to face a new customer, he discovered it was just Fabian coming back from a smoke break.

“Looking a little deranged there, Black,” Fabian grinned at him, red hair fading out to the brownish-red of dried blood in the copious amounts of shadows thrown by all the shelves; strange shapes crawling the walls and the floor, leaking up to the ceiling and dripping back down again.

Sirius shook his head, and everything settled back into place. “Feeling it, mate. Need more coffee.”

“I think if you have any more coffee you’re going to start vibrating.”

“If you smuggle me one anyway,” Sirius paused and narrowed his eyes, trying to look as serious as he could while blinking rapidly in an attempt to keep his eyes open, “and promise me never to let slip where you got it, I’ll give you Dearborn’s number.”

With a flash of a smile and wide eyes, Fabian disappeared into the back, only to reemerge a few minutes later with a large cup of coffee. “James never knows where this came from.”

“Of course.”

Sirius printed out a small piece of blank register tape and, after scrounging up one of the pens they kept by the phone, scrawled a number across it before sliding it over to Fabian. “Your payment, my good sir,” he said, before picking up the coffee and trying to drown himself in it.

The look Fabian threw at that little slip of paper made Sirius grin, just a little bit, around his coffee cup. Then Fabian slipped the paper into his wallet and ducked back into the back room without a word.

His distraction gone, and his coffee soon to follow it, Sirius yawned and went to the bin of scrap paper they used for jotting down phone messages and the occasional large order, found a piece with nothing printed on the back, and flung himself back into his seat.

Turning the paper around a couple of times, Sirius frowned and ducked his head down, little hesitant lines appearing on the page, hashmarks, gauges of blue-black ink in the pristine white. He wasn’t sure what he was drawing, just letting his hand move in a useless attempt to focus on something enough to stay awake.

It didn’t take long, however, for the first twisting tree to appear on the page. Sirius was more surprised that he could recognize it than at what his subconscious decided to latch onto. He knew his art skills were minimal at best, even if his design skills were acceptable. But as the second tree started to take shape, without much permission from him, he had to admit that they looked pretty good.

For a while the scratching of ballpoint on cheap copy paper was the only sound Sirius could hear, the hissing of the stills having long ago become white noise, and he was just finishing up the last of the trees when a set of footsteps dredged him, slowly, out of his stupor.

Blinking a few times, he saw the odd silhouettes scattered through the trees before he saw James leaning down to see what he was doing.

“Taking up drawing now, Sirius?”

Sirius just grunted, eyes fixed and the strangely blank space on the page. The exact location that he saw the young man, the one who could see him.

“Well, if it helps keep you awake, I approve,” James said, clapping a hand to Sirius’ shoulder hard enough to make Sirius sway slightly beneath the force of it. “Besides, you’re not completely awful at it.”

“Gee, thanks,” Sirius grumbled, already picking back up his pen and turning to the blank spot on the page, closing his eyes briefly to call up as many details as he could remember in his foggy state.

All he could see was moonlight faded eyes beneath pale curls, all atop a small quizzical smile.


	3. Chapter Three

The first thing Sirius noticed was that his memory was clearly not as sharp as he had thought, because the trees looked far more twisted up than he had remembered. The fog was thick, but warm this time, and Sirius breathed it in like smoke and mirrors, hissing it back out again, making it swirl around.

It was a shorter walk to reach the trees this time, and Sirius wasn’t entirely sure if that was because it was where he knew he wanted to be, so his subconscious brought him there, or if the dream simply had something to tell him about that location. The first dream was more than enough to convince him that something beyond the normal weirdness was going on with this dream, and he wasn’t about to try and debate with his own sleeping brain.

Reaching up, Sirius wrapped his hand around an angular branch, letting the rough bark dig into his palm. When the pain didn’t wake him up, as it usually would have, he grabbed harder, only pulling his hand back when he felt the small pop of skin breaking and the wet splash of blood across his palm.

The burning was very realistic, and Sirius was actually a little worried about the dirt and moss bits that were clinging to the skin around the slice. He brushed it off as best he could against his denims, leaving a streak of rust across his thigh, inky dark in the moonlight.

He could smell the faint tang of iron, and it pulled him up short. “I couldn’t smell last time!” It was both a realization and an exclamation over the sudden difference between his two visits to this strange place of trees and fog that was both dream and not.

The words came out fuzzy and muted, more the idea of sound than actual sounds that he could hear, and Sirius ended up shaking his head to try and dispel the sudden sensation that his head was wrapped in a thick towel. He had felt the vibrations in his chest, so he was certain he had spoken, but he only understood that he heard it because his brain interpreted what had happened as sound, not because his ears had picked up anything. Slowly, he slid his hands up and covered his ears, closing his eyes and creating a sort of sensory deprivation chamber of himself, just for a moment, trying to reestablish himself so that he didn’t feel so isolated without his hearing.

A couple of solid deep breaths later and he opened his eyes slowly, leaving his hands where they were, so that the muffled, idea of sound rather than actual sound felt more like a choice. He wasn’t fooling himself, but he tried anyway, only taking his hands away from his ears once his eyes had refocused in the fog and gloom.

There was a small owl sitting in one of the trees watching him, feathers ruffling in the wind making it look like an angry dandelion and Sirius kind of wanted to climb the tree and pet it, risk to his fingers be damned.

A few of the people-shaped shadows drifted past, pace more sedate than the last time, and Sirius watched them curiously, trying to bring one of them, any of them, into focus. At one point he nearly made out the shape of a mouth, could almost see the place where eyes should be, but it slipped away when he tried to hold onto it, ephemeral, fading back into the haze.

He stayed off the path, this time, keeping himself tucked away beneath the spider-web tree branches, trying to remain clear of the paths of any of the people scurrying past. The last thing he wanted was a repeat of the unsettling sensation of being walked through that happened the last time.

The owl opened its beak, Sirius assumed it was hooting, and flew off, wingspan barely wider than the palm of his hand. Sirius watched until he lost it in the starless night sky, then continued to watch the sky for what could have been minutes or hours until the first tinges of pink began to appear, the sky flushing, still sleepy and fuzzy until the sun burned the fog off like rubbing the sleep from its eyes.

When he tore his eyes away from the sky one of the silhouettes was staring at him, startling Sirius out of his reverie. It was only the second time he had been noticed in this place, so he took a few steps closer only to see that it was the same young man that had seen him previously.

This time, Sirius could see that the young man’s fine hair was trending towards curly, and that his eyes were a very pale brown.

Those brown eyes met his and widened slightly, and the young man wrapped his too thin jacket tighter around his shoulders, long fingers clinging tightly enough to the edges that Sirius could see his knuckles whitening.

Sirius wanted to reach out and smooth him out, find his twists and unfurl them until he was no longer huddled in on himself. The urge hit him so hard that he actually stumbled back a step. He’d never felt pulled so strongly to a person he didn’t know, and for all intents and purposes didn’t even exist, but he couldn’t shake the way he wanted to feel those curls beneath his cheek. His heart was pounding in a way that he knew he should be able to hear, thudding against his ribs in a punched out staccato.

Suddenly, the other man broke eye contact, turned and walked rapidly away from Sirius, heading the opposite direction of most of the people-shadows he had been watching. Sirius watched his back for a moment, taking in the way his shoulders filled out his jacket, the way his arms curled around himself even when he walked, making his gate uneven, the way he glanced over his shoulder twice to see if Sirius was still there. Taking that as an invitation it probably wasn’t meant to be, Sirius decided to follow him, not quite willing to let him out of his sight yet, jogging a few steps to catch up.

Trees continued to line the path as they meandered along, twisting out of sight of where they started. Sirius was a little surprised by how long the path seemed to be, but then he stopped and remembered that he was technically dreaming, and the length of it probably didn’t mean anything at all. The pavement was a solid thump beneath his boots, though, and the sun was coming up fully, making the trees burst into shades of red and brown. 

When the other man stepped off the path onto a worn groove in the dew damp grass between two particularly gnarled trees, Sirius tried to follow, only to have the other man turn around frowning. Just over his shoulder Sirius could see a large house, sloped roof almost distorted from the perspective of the path, angled sharply down like it was glaring at them.

He was opening his mouth to ask if that’s where the other man lived, when pale brown eyes caught his and held him there, words forgotten.

“Who are you? What do you want?” 

He could see the words, could understand that they had been spoken to him, but he couldn’t hear them. His brain, however, still responded as if the words had rung out.

The words _to know you_ were ringing in the air of his bedroom when Sirius woke up.


	4. Chapter Four

Sirius let himself stay in bed until the sun was well up, slatted shadows crawling across his bed from his blinds; chasing sleep and failing to catch it. When the sun hit his face, he finally gave up and leveraged himself out of bed, bare feet slapping on the faux wood floors, flannel pants sagging loose around the waist. If he let James get a look at how his clothing no longer fit like it should he knew he would be in for a lecture, so he begrudgingly dragged himself to the shower, carrying a pair of mostly clean trousers and a t-shirt that at least didn’t have any stains on it. 

Hoarding all the energy he could gather so he didn’t fall over, Sirius threw himself into the shower, using the cold tiles to keep himself upright while he stood under the warm spray. His hair slowly flattened into his eyes and dripped down onto his chest at an irregular interval dissonant to the shower itself. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, transfixed by the dripping, before he remembered that he was supposed to be getting clean for the day.

Shampoo and a quick pass with soap and Sirius stumbled back out of the shower, looking at his face in the fogged-up mirror and unable to help the thought that after two nights in a row of the same dream, or at least close to it, he was going to exist in this fog forever. 

Pulling his clothes on, and not bothering to dry his hair, Sirius stumbled into the kitchen where he found James already slumped over their scarred kitchen table, clutching a cup of coffee so tightly his hands were shaking.

“And I thought that I needed coffee this morning,” Sirius mumbled, throwing himself into the seat next to James and reaching for the coffee pot, still half full and mostly warm, and pouring himself some into the mug that James had left sitting on the edge of the table for him. He downed the entire thing black, shaking his head and wrinkling his nose, before pouring a second cup and forcing himself to get up for cream and sugar.

“I slept, it’s just too early for this,” James groused, rubbing at his face with one hand while the other still clung to his mug.

The kitchen still smelled like the remnants of the curry they had brought home for dinner the night before, mixed with the coffee and toast that James must have had before Sirius got up.

“You’re the one that insisted on overseeing everything at work rather than hiring someone to do it for you, mate. You can’t really complain about the results of that.”

James threw a napkin at Sirius’ head, then frowned. “Wait, why are you out of bed? You don’t work today.”

Sirius grunted and focused hard on the way the swirls of cream in his coffee spiraled out into pale fractals disrupting the darker color at the surface of his mug.

“You still aren’t sleeping, are you?”

Answering seemed unnecessary, so Sirius just shrugged and dropped his head onto the table.

“Maybe you should see someone about this, Sirius. It’s starting to be unhealthy.”

“It’s just strange dreams, James. I don’t know what anyone could do about that. Besides, it’s been all of two nights. I don’t think that’s worth the time and effort of seeking out help just yet. Might be rushing things just a bit.”

A hand ruffled his still damp hair, getting tangled in the knots behind his ear. “Just promise me if it continues you’ll at least consider it, and not just write off seeing someone as something that people who aren’t _you_ do. That’s your family talking, whether you know it or not.”

“I promise,” Sirius sighed, yawning around his words.

“You’re lying, but I’ll let you get away with it for now. Are you going to be okay while I’m at work?”

Sirius nodded, then realized that a vocal answer was probably required here for James to even pretend to believe him. “Yeah, I’m just going to head to the library for a while. Got a few things to return and I might see if I can find anything new to keep me entertained during my sleepless hours.”

The hand left his head and James snorted. “If you’re joking about it you can’t be that bad off.”

“Nothing that copious amounts of caffeine can’t fix,” Sirius said, picking his head up and toasting James with his coffee mug.

“Try and take a nap today, will you? You’re much more fun when you’re well rested.”

“Ta, dad.”

“Berk,” James whacked his shoulder before heading out the door to open up the Hind and Hound for the day.

Sirius watched him leave, and then sat there, clutching at his coffee until he was sure that James was actually gone, no forgotten keys for once, before slowly clambering to his feet and digging through his mess of a desk for the sketches he had done the day before. Shoving them into a half-full notebook where he usually kept track of the things he needed to do for work so his exhausted brain wouldn’t forget them, he shoved his feet into his boots and grabbed the keys to his motorcycle, shoving his laptop into the smaller case that fit in the motorcycle’s saddlebag.

The wind in his face helped to wake him up, at least temporarily, on his way to his favorite coffee shop. He circled the block three times before finding someplace to park the bike, and then had to walk to finally get to the shop. However, when the door chimed open and he could smell the fresh apple-cinnamon muffins he decided it was worth it to get to spend his day off with good coffee, good baked goods, and research where James couldn’t see him.

Kingsley, the cute barista that Sirius often showed up just to ogle, brought over his regular cup of mocha and a plate with a couple of slices of still-steaming bread.

“Apple walnut, fresh from the oven,” Kinsley offered before Sirius could even ask. “What are we working on today?”

Blinking and getting lost in the smell of fresh sweet bread for a minute, Sirius almost didn’t process the question. “Wait, how did you know I was here to work on something?”

The snort and nod in the direction of his laptop was all the answer Sirius needed. 

“Sorry, I think I might need something stronger than a mocha today.”

“It’s a little early for that, don’t you think?” Kingsley raised an eyebrow in a way that always made Sirius a little jealous.

“Not like that,” Sirius said, rolling his eyes at Kingsley. “I meant something with more caffeine. I slept for shite.”

Kingsley laughed. “Now that can be arranged. You get to work on whatever project has been keeping you up at night, and I'll make sure you stay caffeinated.”

“Thanks, mate,” Sirius smiled at him and pulled out his laptop, trying to come up with the best query to use to find the strange house he had dreamt of.

“Just don't tell James where you got it all when you're bouncing off the walls later.”

“He's not my mother,” Sirius grumbled, already scrolling through Google search results.

“No, but he does seem to have appointed himself your minder when you get like this. At least, he had when we were in school, and seeing as you still live together, I would imagine that hasn't changed any.”

Frowning, Sirius paused for a minute in what he was doing to glance up and see the way Kingsley was smirking at him. “James and I aren't shagging, you know that, right? We never were. He's just my best mate that I happen to live with.”

“You keep telling yourself that, mate,” Kingsley laughed before turning away and heading back to the counter, ignoring the way Alice Longbottom, who actually owned the cafe, was glaring at him from the kitchen doorway.

“Flirt on your own time,” she hissed when he got back, and Sirius gave himself a minute to enjoy the way a blush stained Kingsley’s dark cheeks before turning back to his laptop and the problem at hand.

Kingsley had brought him two more sandwiches and six more mochas, which Sirius assumed he had also added multiple shots of espresso too, before Sirius finally found something that might prove promising.

The article about the fire was old. May of 1998, so a little over twenty years. The photograph of the house showed nothing but a smoldering pile of rubble, but in the background Sirius could see a very familiar path of trees, barely recognizable for their distance behind the house. Taking a moment to scroll, he nearly dropped his mocha when he read that the family that owned the house had all survived by being in their summer home almost a month early that year, but that one man, the caretaker, had vanished. His name had been Remus Lupin, they hadn't found any traces of him in the wreckage, and no one ever saw him again. 

There was a picture of the missing man, and a twenty-year-old plea for information if anyone had any. Sirius knew that face. He had sketched it at least three times already, and was starting to see it behind his eyes even while awake.

“Well bugger,” he hissed, pushing away the sandwich he was no longer hungry for.


	5. Chapter Five

Snow. Heavy, swirling, brittle flakes bombarded Sirius, wet needles to the face. He recognized the tree line instantly this time, and veered immediately towards it, hoping that the bowed branches would offer some sort of shelter. His footprints crunched through a fine layer of ice at the top of the snow on the ground, and then immediately were filled in again.

“If I hadn’t seen the picture, I would think this was in another part of the world,” Sirius breathed to himself wanting to hear something beyond the hiss of the wind, words crystalizing in the air in front of him, crashing to the ground and shattering before the sound could break the stillness around him. 

Shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket, Sirius, for the first time in his life, wished he owned a more practical coat. Something with a hood. Or a space heater. Or a forest fire.

After longer than he would have liked trudging through the snow, dragging his feet and leaving plow marks in his wake, Sirius stumbled up to the trees and leaned against a trunk, weary and wary both. The rasp of bark against his leather jacket was sibilant in the wind, and Sirius bowed his head into the leeward side of the tree trying to reclaim some of his lost heat.

No matter how many times he tried, he couldn’t wish himself warmer, or for the snow to stop, despite knowing full well that he was dreaming. It was something he had only managed a few times in his life in dreams that weren’t this strange, but he kept trying anyway, hoping to find at least a little bit of warmth hiding somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

He couldn’t see the stars this time, and there was something about their absence that struck Sirius as very confining, which he tried to logic himself out of, since he regularly couldn’t see the stars from his flat thanks to light pollution. But without the other lights he could feel the swirling snow pressing in on him like cotton walls, closing in tighter and tighter until he was gasping for air, only to draw in ice and snow, his throat constricting against the cold. Finally, in a bid for some sort of sanity, Sirius unzipped the top inch of his jacket and found that he was at least wearing a thick jumper underneath. He pulled the top edge of the jumper up so it covered the lower half of his face and then rezipped the jacket, breathing through thick wool, but no longer inhaling snow.

The first time he realized that there were still people walking around him was when one of them walked too close to the tree he was leaning against and passed right through him, and he got that strange tug-pull sensation again that left him gasping afterwards, searing his lungs with the cold once again. With how dimly he had been seeing people in previous dreams they were effectively non-existent in the snow.

Coughing a couple of times, Sirius pressed himself flat against one of the trees and tried to stay out of the way, glaring in the direction of the person who had walked through him even though he knew he couldn’t be seen.

Very abruptly Sirius could see, the snow nearly glowing with the sunrise, clouds blocking all the color from the sky so that he felt like he had stepped into an old black and white photograph, the trees now a soft grey instead of a slash of black, the sky dusty looking, flat, and the ground sparkling in white until the footprints of the day came along to destroy it. It was pretty, in a frozen wasteland sort of way, and Sirius wished he were warm enough to appreciate it.

He almost missed the young man – Remus, he reminded himself – when he nearly slipped by in a swirl of snow and heavy coats, boots leaving solid prints behind him.  
Shoving himself off the tree, Sirius tried to follow after Remus, only he slipped in the snow and landed on his arse, denims immediately soaking through, his hip feeling like it was bruising. He tried to push himself back up again, but his hands were numb and slipping as the snow crunched beneath his palms, fingertips sliced and cracking.

“Remus!” he called, not quite sure why he was unwilling to let the other man slip away without seeing him this time. It wasn’t as if dreaming about a man that went missing two decades earlier could end well for anyone involved.

Sirius hadn’t expected anything to come from his impulsive shout, but just at the edges of his vision, Remus slowed down, pulling up and inching his way back around so that he was looking directly at Sirius from more than just a few meters away.

Glacier slow and early morning brittle, Remus walked back to him until he was close enough that Sirius could see the patches in his thick wool coat, and the places where the wind had abraded his fingers raw, his cheeks, the tip of his nose. There were little lines in his forehead and around his eyes, just peeking out from under a knit hat and Sirius wanted to smooth them away.

For a moment they just stared at each other, Sirius ignoring the fact that he was slowly losing feeling in his left hip where it was still buried in the snow, and then Remus held out a hand to help him up.

Tentative, afraid he would pass right through Remus as well, Sirius held out his hand in return, and the clap of solid flesh on solid flesh was as startling as the small “oh!” that Remus let out at the contact.

Sirius curled his fingers around the hand in his, fighting the urge to lace their fingers together. But as soon as he put any real pressure on the small bones caught in between his own his hand slid closed on itself, holding nothing, and he woke up.


	6. Chapter Six

It was still dark when Sirius eyes slowly flickered open and closed a few times, too heavy for him to keep them open despite the way his brain was whirling, spinning away, unwilling to settle enough for him to fall back to sleep. His hand was still curled shut on itself, and he slowly inched each finger open one at a time, noticing that the joints were stiff, cold.

He pulled his blanket back up over his head, trying to smother himself into unconsciousness for at least a few more hours, but all he did was make it hard to breath while he stayed wide awake wondering at the way his hip could still feel where he had fallen in his dream.

Curious, he pried himself out of bed slowly, and crept his way to the bathroom where, after stripping, he could contort into a warped, twisted version of himself and see the back half of his hip in the mirror. There was a greenish purple bruise already forming, crowning the jut at the back of his hip and spreading down his leg.

“Well bugger,” he hissed, shivering. 

He stood there for another long moment, trying to decide if he had maybe just hit himself on something while he was sleeping and it transferred into his sleeping mind, but he knew at the back of his brain that there was nothing in his bed that could have done that sort of damage.

With a shake of his head, and a thought for James still asleep at the far end of the hallway, Sirius turned on the shower as hot as he could stand and climbed in, letting the water sluice off his body, and the steam fog his head up with simplicity, trying to cloud out the last vestiges of snow and wind that seemed to have followed him into consciousness.

When his skin was red and he no longer felt like he was half buried in a snowbank, Sirius climbed out of the shower and smothered himself in towels. Then he slipped back down the hall to his bedroom and tumble into some clothes, not bothering to see if they even matched. Grabbing his laptop he slunk to the kitchen where he started the coffee maker and settled in at the table, only throwing a quick glance to James’ room to make sure he hadn’t woken him. When no grumpy, messy haired git came out to yell at him for being awake before five in the morning, Sirius plugged his laptop in and opened the tab that contained the article about the fire he had found the day before, googled a few additional articles, and started digging into the fire. 

_**FIRE AT OLD JESSUP HOME** _

_May 3, 1998_

_Article by Rita Skeeter_

_In the early hours of the evening of May 2, 1998 a fire broke out at the old Jessup home. The source of the fire is still unknown, but it appears to have originated inside a storage closet in the house. There is little left beyond the smoldering rubble of a once great house and more questions than answers._

_The care-taker, one Remus Lupin, is wanted for questioning as to the circumstances that lead to the fire. However, as of yet, no one has been able to locate Mr. Lupin. The Jessup family, who was on holiday early this year and escaped the blaze, has been contacted for comment, but as of yet have not reached out to this reporter._

_The neighbours all have nothing but kind words to say, both about the Jessup family and Mr. Lupin, however, it is this reporter’s personal opinion that a fire of this magnitude does not break out under the watch of a care-taker as diligent as the neighbors all claim Mr. Lupin to be without some help, and it is rather suspicious that Mr. Lupin cannot be found for questioning._

Sirius stopped reading, and frowned at the article, more slanderous than helpful. Sirius may not have known anything about the young man that was haunting his dreams, but a man who would come back to help him up when no one else could even see him didn’t seem the type to set a fire and then vanish. The sudden spike of anger he felt towards the shock reporter was nearly overwhelming and he had to swallow it down, reminding himself that it was a twenty-year-old article, that he didn’t actually know this man, and gut feelings weren’t actually enough to defend him by. There was no longer any part of him that believed any of this was simply a recurring dream. He wasn’t sure what it was, but he couldn’t believe that anymore. Not with the face of Remus Lupin staring at him from the computer screen, and the bruise still blackening on his hip.

_**SUSPICIOUS FIRE STILL UNDER INVESTIGATION** _

_May 10, 1998_

_Article by Kingsley Shacklebolt_

_Fire at the Jessup home is still under undetermined. After a week’s worth of investigation it appears that the fire started inside the walls, though whether faulty wiring was to blame, or perhaps the rodents that the homeowners claim persisted inside the walls, there is no evidence. The fire does appear to have been an accident. There is still no sign of the caretaker who was supposed to have been in the house at the time of the fire._

Clicking out of the second article and opening yet another new one, Sirius didn’t hear the floorboards settling behind him, or the way the air compressed around him then stilled, fuller, waiting.

“So, is that where you’re getting the inspiration for your drawings? Trawling old news articles?” James asked, leaning over Sirius’ shoulder and making Sirius jump, nearly knocking his laptop off the table in the process.

“No.” Sirius snapped, leaning away from James until he took the hint and backed up, holding up his hands in surrender. 

“Hey, no judgement it if is. I was just curious.” James sank into the seat across from Sirius and poured himself a cup of the coffee that Sirius had made and forgotten about, then poured one for Sirius as well, sliding it across the table with a small frown.

Sirius contemplated not telling James, because he was quite sure that James wouldn’t understand, might even start questioning his sanity. But Sirius spent most of his life questioning his own sanity and James had stuck around through that, so, in his exhaustion, he blurted out, “I dreamed him before I saw the news article, James.”

“You...” James trailed off staring at Sirius, eyes travelling his face in a way that made Sirius explicitly aware that he hadn’t really slept in days. “You dreamed some guy up and then found an article about him afterwards?”

“You don’t have to sound so skeptical, James, I know it sounds insane.” Sirius picked up his coffee and scalded his tongue.

“It sounds more like you read the article at some point and forgot about it, then dreamed it back up and went and found it again.”

Sirius didn’t answer, because he wanted to believe that explanation. For a moment he just sat there, turning that idea over in his mind, the idea that he could have heard or seen something about this fire someplace, trolling through the internet late at night when he was so exhausted he didn’t remember half of what he did, and then his sleep addled brain had transmuted the information into the dreams he was having. But then he saw the puzzled look in Remus’ eyes when he called out his name, felt their hands connect, and most importantly, could still feel the bruise on his hip.

He shook his head. “I wish it were that simple.”

“It makes a lot more sense than, what, you dreaming about some guy that turns out to be real?”

“He’s missing James. Has been for twenty years. I think, maybe, he needs my help to not be missing anymore.” As soon as Sirius said it out loud, he was certain he was right about what was happening. 

“Wait, wait, wait, you think your dream man – and don’t think I didn’t notice that he’s _exactly_ your type – is crying out for help from twenty years ago, through your dreams? Are you sure this isn’t some sort of hero complex coming to the surface, where you can imagine yourself rescuing the boy, and riding off into the sunset?”

“Kindly fuck off.”

“Aww, has Sirius finally found the man of his dreams, literally?” James was smirking, and Sirius wasn’t awake enough for this, so he slammed his laptop shut rather than slam his fist into James’ face, and he stormed out of the kitchen, ignoring his coffee and James, and the last shreds of his dignity, as he stuffed his feet into his boots and stalked out of the flat without saying another word.

He ignored James calling his name, and burst outside into an overcast morning, tinged with the last vestiges of sunrise casting pink and peach across the clouds, slowly fading into grey and white. It wasn’t raining, though, so he ignored his bike in favor of walking, slowly, until he made it to work. Hopefully by the time James made it there the urge to poke fun at Sirius will have passed and Sirius won’t have to casually maim his best friend.

The pounding of his boots on the pavement reverberated up through his bones until his head was throbbing with it, but it grounded him in the present in a way that not much else did, so he kept walking, slow and steady, until he had crossed town and found himself in front of the Hind and Hound. And he wasn’t alone there.

Peter Pettigrew, who provided the bulk of their supplies, a contract he earned as much from having gone to school with James and Sirius as the quality of his wares, was pacing in front of the entrance to the distillery, his heavy work boots thumping unsteadily in a way that Sirius remembered from school, indicating that Peter was not happy about something.

“Hey Pete, what’s up?” Sirius asked, slowing down and stopping in front of the door, putting himself in the way of Peter’s pacing and letting Peter run into him, bouncing slightly and pulling him up short, finally.

“Oh, hi, Sirius. Do you know if James is going to be here soon?”

Bad mood trickling back up, Sirius took a deep breath, trying not to let it spill over onto Peter, who hadn’t caused it and didn’t deserve it. This time.

“How are you, Peter? I’m fine, personally. Haven’t seen you in a while. What have you been up to? And no, I have no idea when the wanker is going to be here. Probably at opening today. I think it’s his late morning. I’m losing track.”

Peter had the grace to look slightly chagrined, but he didn’t apologize, and Sirius kind of wanted to applaud his tenacity, but wasn’t thrilled that it was being directed at him. So, he frowned and leaned against the door of Hind and Hound without unlocking it and letting Peter in.

“Sorry, Sirius. It’s just that James ordered a second delivery this week, but my supplier is backlogged so I can’t get it to him, and I wanted to tell him in person, because I promised I could get it and I don’t want him to be upset with me.”

Sirius sighed, because Peter had a point, and a legitimate reason to be stressed, which meant he couldn’t continue to be grumpy at him. Or, at least, he couldn’t without being rude about it. Peter always had been a bit desperate for approval, and while Sirius didn’t understand it personally, he knew that’s how Peter was. He didn’t begrudge him being a little worried about losing that approval, even though they both knew it wouldn’t actually happen. Stressing over things that couldn’t be helped was something that Sirius was coming to understand a little more these last few days.

“Why don’t you come in. I’ll crack open a bottle of the good stuff while we wait for the plonker to get here.”

“It’s barely seven in the morning, Sirius!”

Sirius shrugged and grinned, unlocking the door and gesturing at Peter to follow. “So?”

Peter spluttered for a moment, but he trailed behind Sirius into the Hind and Hound, and when Sirius pulled a bottle of the expensive stuff out of the locked case they kept it in overnight and held it out Peter didn’t say no.

A handful of hours later found James sauntering in to find Sirius and Peter half sitting, half falling all over the counter, the bottle of Hair of the Dog Bourbon mostly gone, and 

Peter trying to convince Sirius to pour another dram.

“What the fuck, Sirius!” James hissed, grabbing the wobbly bottle out of Sirius’ hands and slamming it down on the counter next to his head, making Sirius flinch and jump, falling off his seat and landing hard on the floor. Sirius wanted to protest the assumption that he was the one that needed yelling at, but he couldn’t focus enough to find the words.

“We needed to do _something_ until you got here, mate,” Sirius slurred, tongue feeling heavy and thick in his mouth.

“And that involved getting sloshed on a bottle of the expensive stuff, at work, while the sun is barely up?”

“Hey, it’s my life, dad, and I paid for the bottle. The cash is in the drawer.”

James pinched the bridge of his nose, nearly knocking his glasses off his face, his eyes closed for a long minute. “I at least expected better out of _you_ , Pete. What are you even doing here?”

“I was here to see you,” Peter said, slurring less than Sirius, but wobbling a little on his seat, “and Sirius offered up the good stuff. How often do I get to have the good stuff?”

There was a long silence that Sirius was smart enough not to break, even if he wanted to defend himself. Instead, he grabbed the bottle from James’ hand and took a swig, holding James’ eye and glaring the entire time.

Blowing out a tight breath of air, James paced back to the door and stepped outside, walking back in slowly, the door chiming overhead and ratcheting Sirius’ nerves one step tighter until he felt like he was strung up between two taut ropes, waiting to be pulled apart.

“Okay, I’m going to start over,” James said, walking back up to the counter, picking up the bottle, and capping it before trying to put it in his back pocket, only to discover that it didn’t fit.

Sirius snorted at the spectacle, but didn’t say anything.

“Peter, it’s good to see you, why don’t you go wait in my office while I have a chat with this wanker.”

Peter nodded, wide eyed, shoulders hunched up and fingers twitching, fidgeting with the hem of his jumper. He stumbled once as he slid off the counter and tripped his way to the back of the distillery where James had a small office to do the paperwork, someplace with a little bit of quiet.

As soon as Peter was out of sight, James turned back to Sirius, mouth a flat slice carved into his face, pinched at the corners and drawing his brow down. “Go home, Sirius.”

“Wait, what? I’m working today.”

“No, you aren’t. Not anymore,” James said, quiet, stern. “You are going home and sleeping it off. I’m calling McKinnon.”

“You can’t just kick me out like a wayward child,” Sirius grumbled, blinking heavily to fight off the beginnings of double vision.

“I can if you’re going to behave like one. And you’re going home now. I am not putting up with you sloshed all day. I didn’t see your bike, but if it’s here it’s staying here. You can call a cab or walk.”

Sirius didn’t bother dignifying that with a response, rather just flung himself from his seat, only swaying a little once his feet were under him. Stomping towards the door, he flipped James off on his way outside, reaching up and grabbing the tinkling bell on his way past, just to keep it from making any noise. He fought the urge to tear it off the door frame entirely, but did allow himself to slam the door behind him, feeling marginally better for the loud clatter it made.

When it didn’t sound like anyone was following him out of the Hind and Hound, Sirius turned away from the direction that would take him home, and began to pace the streets. 

He didn’t make it more than a few blocks, however, when the bourbon caught up with him, and he had to lean against a lamp post to stay upright.

“Well bugger,” he grumbled to himself, loath to admit that maybe James was right and he’d had a little too much. He certainly wouldn’t say it to James. But he might finally do the dishes that had been piling up once he made it home, as a way of apology. After he took a nap, if he could manage it. He didn’t want to accidentally break any of the dishes.

Fumbling his phone out of his pocket, Sirius called a cab, crawled into the backseat and slurred out his address. The longer he sat, the drunker he got, and suddenly his life choices didn’t seem so brilliant any more. His only consolation was that Peter was probably feeling just as poorly.

The cab dropped him off after what felt like a nauseatingly short amount of time, and he managed to keep himself mostly upright until the car drove off, leaving him standing at the bottom of the stairs to his flat, wondering when he got so old that a little bourbon left him reeling.

With a lot of help from the walls, Sirius hauled himself up the stairs and tumbled into the kitchen where he got himself some water, dropping into a seat and waiting until the world stopped spinning around him.

An hour, and four glasses of water later, his head was slowly unfuzzing, and he decided to take the excuse of being kicked out of work to try and finally get some sleep. 

Promising himself he’d deal with the dishes as soon as he woke up, he tripped his way to his bedroom and collapsed onto his mattress, still clothed, pulling the blankets up to his ears and passing out almost immediately.


	7. Chapter Seven

It was warmer this time, the trees covered in buds, leaves still furled up tight at the tips of winter bare branches. The sky was still twilight blue, knobby shadows dancing across the brittle grass, still dried and waiting for the rains.

Remus was leaning against one of the trees, looking almost expectant, and Sirius couldn’t help but smile at him, trying very hard to ignore the clenching in his chest when Remus smiled back. It was the first smile he had seen from the man, and Sirius wanted to know what it would feel like pressed into his skin, which startled him a little. He wasn’t used to responding so viscerally to a man he didn’t even know.

Once close enough, Sirius reached out a hand, wanting to discover if he could feel Remus solid beneath his fingertips without everything crumbling apart, but Remus shook his head, backing away from the touch, turning and walking up the path that branched off of the well-trodden one that Sirius had come to recognize.

He trailed along, only checking out Remus’ arse for a split second before catching himself and staring determinedly at the spot between his shoulder blades instead, which didn’t really help any. Remus had very nice shoulders now that he wasn’t buried in a heavy winter coat.

Sirius mentally kicked himself, and sped up so that they were side by side and he couldn’t ogle a complete stranger from behind like the creep he was starting to feel like. 

It didn’t take long, however, until they broke through a gap in the trees and the same house he had seen looming over them a couple of nights prior came into view.

Remus pulled out a small key and let them in through a large gate leading into a well-manicured lawn at the back of the house, which Sirius assumed was the Jessup place. There was a tiny shed at the far end of the yard, and small, obviously pruned trees still bundled up in burlap for the winter.

Sirius held back, looking around and not entirely certain he was meant to be there, but Remus reached behind himself and grabbed Sirius by the arm. The heat from Remus’ hand seeped through his skin and Sirius pulled up short at the contact, but when Remus turned around with a tentative smile Sirius couldn’t help but return it and sidle up alongside him, sliding his hand down and lacing their fingers together. His fingers were squeezed gently, and Sirius almost forgot how to breathe for a moment, letting himself be tugged along until they reached a small door at the side of the house.

Remus produced a small key from his pocket and let them in, only stopping once the door was secured behind them again.

“You feel very solid for a ghost,” was the first thing Remus said to him, voice soft and slightly raspy, and Sirius wanted to taste it.

“Wait, ghost?”

“Well, aren’t you?”

Sirius, who didn’t have an answer to that, or to what he actually _was_ in the realm of dreams, just shrugged and focused on the fact that Remus hadn’t let go of his hand.

“If I’m a ghost, why are you still holding my hand?”

A very slight pink tinge colored the tips of Remus’ ears, which Sirius only noticed because of the way Remus ducked his head, his hair brushing across the tops of his ears and catching Sirius’ eye. He still wanted to run his fingers through it as much as he did that very first time he saw Remus a handful of nights prior.

“Umm, because you’re a very pretty ghost, and you’re letting me.” Despite the pink hue slowly creeping down from Remus’ ears and invading his cheeks, his words came out confident, assured of himself in a way that his bashful smile didn’t convey, but that Sirius rather liked.

“I do seem to be letting you, don’t I?” Sirius grinned, squeezing the fingers still twined with his.

“I’d ask why you were letting me, but I’m afraid then you’ll disappear again,” Remus said, tugging Sirius further into the house.

“So, what is this place?” Sirius asked, wanting to hear what Remus had to say, not what outdated newspapers said when they couldn’t ask anyone with firsthand information.

“My job,” Remus said with a shrug, looking away from Sirius in a way that Sirius recognized from the time he had lived with his parents and their money and scorn.

“Odd place for a job,” Sirius said, keeping his voice light. “Groundskeeper? Cook? I don’t see you cleaning this place for them, although, I could be wrong about that. I wouldn’t want to assume.”

The hand in his slipped away and Remus went to lean against a heavy banister leading up to the second floor. “A little of everything,” he said quietly. “Mostly grounds, but I do repairs inside as well. The cleaning staff comes in once a week during the summer months when the family is out of town.”

“You know you don’t have to tell me all of this, right? I don’t need justification for your job. As long as they treat you right I don’t need to know anything more than that.”

“You don’t need to pretend to care,” Remus sighed, looking away, down at the floor. “I’m a poor nobody that you don’t even know.”

Sirius snorted before he could help himself. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t noticed the patches on Remus’ pants, and the frayed edges of his sleeves. He just hadn’t cared. “And I’m a rich nobody from a rich family that I would rather disown than take a penny from ever again, because money doesn’t make you a good person, and it definitely helped make them bad people. I don’t care if you’re poor, and I _want_ to know you. That’s enough for me.” He shook his head and sagged against the wall. “Oh, and I don’t _pretend_ to care about anyone. If I don’t care, you’ll know.”

“You may say that, but I know better than to get involved with rich boys. I’m great fun for slumming around with for a while, testing out the other side, but in the end I’m an embarrassment around your friends and family, and that’s the end of that.”

“If you’ve already decided that about me, then why were you waiting for me this morning?” Sirius snapped.

Remus sagged, the banister creaking slightly beneath his weight. “I wanted to know why you were following me.” He paused, and took a slow breath, Sirius watched his chest rise and fall. “And hope is a hard thing to squash.”

“Look, give me a chance. I don’t care if you’re poor or wealthy, working or spending all your time in leisure pursuits. I care if you’re a good person, and if we can get along at all.”

“I can’t believe I am having this conversation with a ghost,” Remus muttered, finally looking back up at Sirius.

“I think I’m fairly solid for a ghost,” Sirius said, letting Remus change the conversation, not pushing the issue.

“Then why am I the only one who can see you?”

Sirius paused for a minute then let out a chuckle, more air than a real laugh. “You know, I can’t answer that one.”

“You’re not filling me with a whole lot of faith that you aren’t a ghost, you know.”

“Well, Remus, what can I do to convince you?”

There was a long pause during which Remus stared at Sirius intently, and then took a couple of steps backward. “Not knowing my name would have been a good start.”

“Oh bugger,” Sirius grumbled. “Okay, so, here’s the best I can work out. I’ve been dreaming you, and after the third time I had a dream about the same place and the same really attractive man, I decided to try and do some research, figure out why. I found you on the internet.”

“What? You’re not making any sense. How could you be dreaming me? I’m real and awake.”

Sirius wasn’t sure if he was glad or concerned that Remus didn’t ask why he was found on the internet. He didn’t fully want to explain the fire yet, but he didn’t like the way Remus basically dismissed the whole thing. He wanted to shake the man and tell him that he mattered, but he could already tell that that wasn’t the sort of thing that would go over well. Taking a deep breath, he let it go, temporarily. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m not quite sure how it’s happening. But I’m living nearly twenty years later than we are currently in.”

“You’re lying.”

Sirius took a step forward, but when Remus tensed, he stopped. “Look, I won’t come any closer if it makes you uncomfortable, but I want to show you something, if you’ll let me.”

“Oh hell, I didn’t mean –” Remus stopped and squared his shoulders up, uncurling from the wall, blooming upwards until he was looking Sirius in the eyes. “I don’t know why it feels different thinking you’re insane than thinking that I am, but it does. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, I’m not offended. I’m fairly certain I’m insane, too. Just not about this.” Sirius reached into his pocket hoping that things transferred into his dream the same way his clothes did. Palming his wallet, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Here, just look,” he said, tossing the wallet to Remus. “The I.D. Right when you open it.”

Remus flipped open the beat-up leather wallet and slipped the I.D. out of its slot, turning it over in his hands a few times. “Sirius Black,” he said finally, sliding the I.D. back into the wallet and tossing it back to Sirius. “Is that actually your name? It sounds too perfect, a good fake for a fake I.D.”

“Wait, what? Of course, that’s my name. That’s not a fake.”

“No I.D. looks like that.”

Frustrated, Sirius shoved the wallet back in his pocket, growling in the back of his throat when it wouldn’t go back in on the first, or even second try. Remus was half grinning at him by the time he finished fighting with it, still looking wary, but at least now it was tinged with amusement.

Finally getting the wallet into his pocket, Sirius sighed and grabbed his iPhone out of his other pocket instead, determined to at least convince Remus that he wasn’t making it up. He tried to unlock the screen, but everything just came up as gibberish, symbols and smudges that he couldn’t read. Vaguely recalling somewhere that you couldn’t read in dreams, Sirius held it out to Remus. “Can you read anything on this screen?”

Remus slowly came over, getting just close enough to lean down and look at the screen of the phone. “It looks like you broke it,” he said finally, still frowning down at the phone. “Unless, of course, it’s supposed to look like a half shaken etch-a-sketch.”

Sirius laughed, a sharp bark of a thing that made Remus’ head snap up. “No, it isn’t. I’m fairly sure it’s because you can’t read anything in a dream.”

“Okay, let’s say for a moment that I believe you. I’m still not sure that I do, but let’s assume for a moment that you aren’t insane. How? How are you here?”

“I don’t have the answers to that, Remus. Or to much of anything else.” He sighed and put his phone away now that he saw it wasn’t going to be of any use to him while he was dreaming. “But I was hoping we could try and figure that out together. You’re the one constant every time I’m here, so it _has_ to have something to do with you.”

The last of the distance between them disappeared. “Yeah, okay, we can try that,” Remus said softly, reaching out a hand and very lightly resting it on Sirius’ arm.

Sirius laid his other hand over Remus’ and when Remus didn’t pull away he leaned down until they were sharing breath. “You’re very pretty.”

“Then do something about it,” Remus said, voice barely carrying, dissipating into the air between them, hissing out into nothingness.

Just as Sirius leaned down and pressed his lips to Remus’ the phone in his pocket started buzzing and the world crackled out as he woke up.


	8. Chapter Eight

Sirius nearly fell out of bed trying to roll over and grab his phone, which was ringing far too close to his ear, the vibrations reverberating through his skull and making him wince. He definitely should have drank more water before he passed out.

Half out of the bed, one hand clinging to the sheets as if that would keep him from falling, Sirius managed to get a hand on his phone and slide to answer just before it disconnected. 

“What?” he groused, blinking heavily and trying to make the world come into focus around him. Everything was still a little fuzzy and he wasn’t sure if it was from being sleep drunk or still actually drunk. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were alive,” James answered, voice far too loud in Sirius’ ear. Pulling the phone away from the side of his head slightly, Sirius flopped sideways, landing back on the bed, sprawled out flat, staring at the crack in his ceiling and wondering if it had always spiderwebbed out from the corner that far.

“I was asleep.”

“Oh, good, you need it.”

Remus’ insistence that he wasn’t a dream kept whispering through Sirius brain, insidious, until he was no longer sure if he was right, or if he was finally losing his mind like the rest of his family. “And I wish I still were,” he continued, only half paying attention to his own words, mind still on the pale brown of Remus’ eyes, the way his hair slipped over them like he wanted to hide from the world, but not long enough to draw any sort of attention to himself. “I was going to get to kiss him, James, and you had to go and wake me up.”

The silence crackled, and Sirius mentally played back through what he had just said, and then imagined the way that James was probably going to take that.

“Who?” was all James said, not giving Sirius enough to go on to decide what the best answer was to get James to bugger off.

“Remus, who do you think?”

Nothing for a long moment, and then, “I think maybe I should come home.”

“You really don’t have to do that, James.”

“I really think I do, actually.” James hung up before Sirius could respond, and Sirius had to fight the urge to throw his phone across the room. The phone didn’t deserve to be punished just because his best mate was an overprotective git sometimes.

He gave himself five minutes to try and get his head to stop spinning before slowly crawling his way out of bed and stumbling towards the kitchen in search of water.  
His laptop was still sitting at the table where he had slammed it shut that morning when James had pissed him off. In retrospect he probably wouldn’t have gotten so angry if he had been sleeping better, and then maybe he wouldn’t be in this mess now, hung over with James so worried that neither of them was at Hind and Hound during business hours. 

He would feel guilty over that as soon as he wasn’t hungover anymore.

Downing a glass of water and filling a second, Sirius sank into the chair and creaked open his laptop, waiting for it to whirl to life, the screen popping back up to the page about the fire that he had been reading that morning.

Just then he realized what he had to do. Flipping through the articles he had found he started hunting for the address of the house. The first three had nothing, and finally he stopped looking for articles about the fire and simply googled “Jessup House” which yielded 2,783 results. Groaning, Sirius slumped back in the heavy wooden chair and closed his eyes for a minute. Taking a deep breath, and downing half his glass of water, waiting to see if his stomach held, and then drinking a little more, he clicked on the first link, hoping.

He was so focused on his hunt that he didn’t hear the door open until a hand fell on his shoulder, making him jump and nearly knock the laptop off the table.

“Fuck, James, don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I wasn’t sneaking, Sirius, you’ve just stopped processing the real world the last few days.”

Rubbing at his temples Sirius gave James a rueful smile. “Don’t worry about that, I’m definitely processing the real world. I sort of wish I weren’t, right about now.”

“Does that mean you won’t be drinking a bottle of good bourbon at work again in the near future?” Sirius didn’t begrudge James the question, even if he did want to resent the tone a little bit. Biting his tongue on his instinct to snark back, he sighed and dropped his head onto his arms on the table, whacking himself on the corner of his laptop and wincing.

“Not any time soon, no.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” James hissed out in one long breath, flinging himself into the seat next to Sirius. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really, James. I’d rather find it.”

“Umm, Sirius, you can’t find a dream.”

Hauling his head back up off the table and pulling out his phone to jot down the address that he had found just as James was walking in, Sirius grinned and waved it in front of   
James’ face. “Yes, actually I can.”

“Let me guess, you’re going to go investigate now.”

“It’s like you know me, or something,” Sirius answered, trying to keep his tone light and not make James even more worried about him than he already was. 

“And you aren’t going to wait until you’ve had enough sleep to be lucid, are you?”

Sirius sighed, exhausted beyond simply not sleeping well for days in a row. “I’m perfectly lucid, James. Just because it doesn't make any sense to you doesn’t mean I’m losing my mind, no matter what my genetics might imply. If my family genetics had caught up with me I’d be becoming en entitled git, not dreaming up pretty men who need my help.”

“So you at least admit you think he’s pretty?” James smirked, but Sirius could see the worry still hiding behind the grin, it was in the way his eyes were still pinched at the corners and his hair was sticking up in the back from running his hands through it repeatedly.

Hoping it would at least get James to back off a little, Sirius flashed him a rueful smile. “Yeah, he’s pretty. And he seems like he’s into me, so I would really appreciate getting to find him.”

“Well, then, I guess I’m going to have to go with you, just in case you do find him. Gotta make sure this man of your dreams is actually good enough for you, you know?”

Sirius handed James his phone with the address as way of thanks, because he couldn’t come up with the words to say _thank you for humoring me, even though I’m not actually insane, I do realize you can’t know that_ without making both of them uncomfortable. 

James took the phone with a nod and a small smile. “I’m driving. I’m not letting you wreck us on that bike of yours, and you’re clearly still exhausted.”

The urge to argue was strong, but Sirius tamped it down, nodding and following James out to his shiny new hatchback. James plugged the address into the navigation system and waited for the strangely tinny voice to start weaving them through town.

It took longer than Sirius had expected, town nearly falling away behind them as the houses were slowly becoming more and more spread out, and the trees were getting thicker. Before the navigation system told them they were at their destination, however, a familiar line of trees crept into view along the side of the road, a well worn and cracked pathway between them.

“Stop! James, stop!”

The car screeched to a halt, and when Sirius flung himself out of the door, he saw that James had left rubber on the road to stop when he had shouted. He was sprinting towards the trees before James had managed to pull the car off the road and throw it into park, but he heard the engine cut out behind him and footsteps rushing to catch up.

“Sirius, wait up!”

Forcing himself to stop running, Sirius held his breath until James caught up again. “It’s here. I know this place.”

“It does look an awful lot like that first drawing you did,” James allowed with a small frown. “Are you sure you haven’t been out here before?”

“Of course, I have, just not while I’m awake.”

The look James gave him was a little wide eyed, a little less skeptical than it had been an hour earlier.

“Well, come on then, if you’ve really been here before how do we find your dream man?”

“Please stop calling him that.”

“Well, isn’t he?”

Sirius didn’t answer him, just closed his eyes for a moment to orient himself, feeling more out of place awake than he had in any of his dreams. Then, with a deep breath, he started off again in the direction Remus had taken him just a few hours earlier.

They walked in silence, passing a few people in suits heading home at the end of the work day. The sorts of people who might make up the hazy figures Sirius was dreaming, only this time solid and harried looking, still not seeing him, too involved in their own lives to see anyone around them. Sirius ignored them until one of them bumped into his shoulder while scurrying past.

He knocked into James, rebounding off the first hit, and they both stumbled, Sirius catching himself on one of the trees and hissing when a piece of wood slid into the palm of his hand. James grabbed his hand, wincing in sympathy, and tried to work the sliver out, frowning when it was embedded in the scab that was just starting to form on Sirius’ palm already.

“Where did this come from?” James asked, indicating the bumpy, cracked strip of angry red skin.

Pulling back his hand, Sirius took a minute, putting his mouth to the new wound and sucking, drawing the splinter closer to the surface where he could grab the tip of it with his teeth and yank it out. “I cut my hand on this same tree in my dream a few nights ago,” Sirius shrugged after he spit the splinter out and wiped his mouth with the back of his uninjured hand.

“And you didn’t think that might be important for me to know?” James asked, sounding exasperated.

“You barely believe that I’m having recurring dreams, let alone that they’re somehow real. I didn’t really want you to have me committed, James. I’m having a hard enough time believing myself.”

James just nodded to that, and Sirius was inordinately grateful that he didn’t ask any more questions, that he knew Sirius well enough to let it go for the time being.

“Come on, then, let’s go find this place,” James said, words slow and heavy, drawn out like he had to fight to draw them up. Like he was as exhausted as Sirius felt.

With a nod, Sirius started walking again, a little slower this time, hand throbbing and bleeding sluggishly, a small trickle running down his palm until he had to stop and pull out a wad of tissues to clutch, trying to stem the blood. Once he was no longer in any danger of bleeding on anything he got near, they started walking again, James sneaking glances at him that Sirius wasn’t having much difficulty catching. 

It took a few moments for Sirius to recognize the place that Remus had led him off the path now that the house wasn’t looming in the distance to guide him, but once he realized that the trees he was passing no longer looked familiar and turned around, to much grumbling from James, he found the place, veering quickly off the path.

The walk felt like it took longer without Remus’ hand in his, but eventually the grounds opened up, and Sirius found that the yard that had once been so meticulously groomed was now overgrown, grass nearly a meter high, full of weeds and wildflowers wilting from a lack of water, but somehow managing to have a stranglehold on the grounds.

There were creeping shadows from the once manicured shrubs that had grown wild and tangled, crackling fingers of branches reaching out over the grounds, stuttering darkness flickering a latticework over the lawn. 

The house was nothing but rubble and char, decades later. What little may have remained standing had collapsed from the press of time and weather.

Ignoring where the main door had been, Sirius walked around the perimeter of the foundation until he reached the place that Remus let him into the house. There were beams of wood just inside the lip of the rubble, remains of what appeared to be the banister that Remus had been leaning against just a few hours earlier, while Sirius had been still sleeping. Seeing it crumbling and sooty made Sirius’ stomach lurch, and he stumbled backwards, retching. 

“Sirius?”

Sirius just shook his head, taking gasping breaths and leaning his hands on his knees, back to the scarred bones of the once grand house.

“Are you okay?” James tried again.

“Just give me a minute,” Sirius breathed, trying to block the image of Remus caught in the flames that rose unbidden to the forefront of his mind. Logically he knew that if Remus had been there, they would have found a body, and that was not the case. But he couldn’t get the dread to dissipate, and finally he just gave in and sank down onto the ground, the grass up past his shoulders and tangling in his hair.

James dropped to his knees beside Sirius and placed a hand carefully on his shoulder. Sirius leaned into James’ side and squeezed his eyes shut.

“I knew it had burnt down, but it’s different to see it. More real.” A blade of grass tickled his ear and he swatted at it, knocking into James in the process. 

“I’m still struggling with the fact that it’s real,” James admitted, and Sirius opened his eyes and looked at him, feeling the way air was hard to draw in, his hands shaking where they gripped his knees even though he was sitting.

“He was real, James. And he just vanished.”

“Well, then, let’s see if we can find something the authorities couldn’t that’s still here after the weather got to it. That is why you dragged me here, isn’t it?”

Sirius nodded, then shook his head, then nodded again. “I don’t know, maybe. I think I just needed to see it. To be certain.”

“Well, you’ve seen it. Is that enough?”

There was no judgement in James’ voice, and Sirius finally opened his eyes and looked over James’ shoulder at the ruins. “No. I don’t think it is.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Standing up, James held out a hand and Sirius took it, letting James haul him to his feet. The breeze smelled like wildflowers and decay.

“So, we’re going to have to limit sales on the Harvest Moon Rye,” James said, trying to distract Sirius while he picked his way back over the threshold of the rubble, trying to remember how to breathe while his eyes got stuck on the charred banister once again. “Apparently Pete’s supplier had a blight on the latest crop and forgot to tell him. I’m not sure that Pete didn’t just forget to order the extra, but I’ll let him blame a third party that we’ll never hear from if it makes him feel better. But it does mean we can’t get the grain we need for at least a month.”

Sirius let him ramble about the parts of the business that he rarely had anything to do with, the mundane mixing with the bizarre, until Sirius couldn’t pull himself out of either, the house flickering into view in the back of his mind, until he almost tripped over a pile of crumbling beams of wood because he tried to step over the edge of a carpet that was no longer there.

Catching himself on a stone pillar that once was the cornerstone of the entranceway, Sirius pulled up, frowning. “James?”

James cut off in his rant about trying to find a new supplier for their barrels, a comment he made at least twice a month and which Sirius didn’t take very seriously, and came striding over quickly.

“What is it, Sirius?”

Sirius pointed at his feet, and James bent over, kicking through the rubble until he saw what Sirius was pointing at. Bending over and sifting his fingers through the soot James came back up holding a charred and yellowing piece of plastic in his fingers. Brushing it off Sirius’ picture came into view.

“Sirius, how did this get here?”

Reaching for his wallet, Sirius flicked it open and found that his I.D. was no longer there. Showing James the empty slot, Sirius grimaced. “I must have dropped it when I showed it to Remus.” He took a deep breath and ran a finger over the roughened edge of the card that James was still holding. “Twenty years ago.”


	9. Chapter Nine

The house loomed before Sirius, moonlight reflecting off the roof making it look like the building had a halo. Everything wavered for a minute, and Sirius regretted letting James talk him into taking a sleeping pill. He knew that he needed to find answers, and the best way to do that was to be asleep, but it was making his head fuzzy and the world around him was blurring for it, swaying and flickering in and out. The trees were closing in, and Sirius closed his eye letting them reach out to grab him, knowing that they already had him ensnared even if they never touched him. 

A gust of wind made him sway on his feet and he finally had to open his eyes so he didn’t fall over. The trees were exactly where he had left them, and the house was just a house.

A deep breath later and Sirius forced his feet to propel him towards the building, knowing that he was too early, but needing to see Remus again, to know that he had been there, that they had connected somehow.

When he reached the house the side door they had entered through the last time was opened just a crack, and Sirius pulled back immediately, pulse in his throat, breathing suddenly seeming too loud.

With a cautious hand he pushed the door open slowly, wincing when it creaked, the noise cracking through the air and making Sirius jump.

“Who’s there?” a voice called out from just inside the door, and Sirius took a deep breath and let himself slip inside to find Remus pressed against the far wall, eyes wide, glaring at the door.

“It’s just me,” he said, holding his hands out carefully, waiting until Remus peeled himself off the wall to come over and smack him in the chest. He shivered at the contact.

“Sirius, you berk, you scared me. What are you doing here?”

“Looking for you?” Sirius didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but he didn’t regret it when Remus’ ears turned a delightful shade of pink that made him want to nibble on them. Shaking his head he tried to focus, but it was hard when Remus was watching him like his appearance mattered.

“Looking for me? Really?”

“Remus, I know this whole thing is incredibly weird. Trust me, it’s just as weird from my end. But I can promise you that I have always been looking for you.” He paused and then chuckled. “That didn’t sound nearly so creepy in my head.”

“I bet it didn’t sound that soppy, either, did it?” Remus laughed, not backing away despite the fact that they were very nearly sharing the same breath.

“No, it really didn’t.” He bit his tongue on saying that Remus made him feel soppy, though. It was too soon to say things like that. They had barely spoken to each other before. He couldn’t explain how it felt like he had known Remus his whole life, or how finding him in the news had felt like hearing about his own death. Remus only existed inside his head, and that left Sirius feeling connected even though he knew he was as real as the charred bones of the house had been.

“I wish I knew how to get ahold of you,” Remus said, quietly, still watching him, but backing up so he was leaning against the wall again.

“What are you talking about, I’m here every night?” Sirius frowned, tipping his head and watching as Remus flashed him an incredulous look.

“Every night? It’s been six months since you tried to kiss me. I was starting to think I had hallucinated you.”

“Six months! It was just last night!” But the more he thought about it the more that didn’t make sense. The first time Sirius had been there it had been cold, and then it hadn’t. There had been snow, and flowers. “Maybe,” he hedged, taking a step towards Remus, “time doesn’t move the same here and where I am when I’m awake.”

“I still don’t know what you’re going on about, you know,” Remus sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I am awake, so I don’t understand how you can claim that you aren’t.”

“When I’m awake it’s the year 2018, Remus, and everything here has been burnt down to the ground.”

“I just can’t believe that.”

“I know it’s difficult, but please try. I want to figure out what is going on, because I don’t really want to lose you now that I’ve found you.” He paused and sighed. “Yeah, that sounds creepy too. I promise I’m not some sort of stalker. I just know that there has to be some reason I keep finding you.”

“You aren’t really helping your case any,” Remus sighed, but he didn’t move away, and Sirius took that as a good sign.

Struggling to come up with something, anything, that would help his point, but he didn’t have anything. He wanted to pull out his phone and open the article about the house fire, but the last time he had tried to use his phone while he was dreaming it had been nothing but gibberish. Of course, maybe that didn’t matter.

He pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and slid it open, unlocking the screen by wrote, not needing to read the numbers on the screen to put in his password. “Please take a look at this,” he said, finally, holding out his phone. 

Cautiously, Remus came over and looked at the small screen, frowning. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”

“This is my phone,” Sirius said softly, swiping the screen to the side so that the jumbled images flipped past and Remus could see that it worked, even if nothing could be read. 

“This is the direction technology is taking.”

“You know, I don’t know what your scheme is, but showing me some sort of fabricated piece of technology to sell your point isn’t doing you any favors.” Thankfully, Remus sounded at least a little amused by the whole thing, and wasn’t running away screaming, so Sirius was taking that as a win as far as it would go. 

Sirius sighed and stuffed the phone back in his pocket. “I was afraid you might say that. I’m just really tired of people telling me that I’m insane. I can’t explain any of this, but I was hoping that if you believed me we might be able to figure this out.”

“How am I supposed to believe someone who keeps disappearing for months on end and then just appearing out of the blue like he never left?”

There was no argument to that that Sirius could make without sounding false, even to himself, so he kept quiet, settling back and leaning against the heavy column at the base of the stairs. “I just need to know that I’m not losing my mind,” he said softly, hating the way the words wobbled on their way out.

Remus watched him for a long moment before giving a sharp nod. “Okay, why don’t you actually come in instead of hovering awkwardly by the door. I’ll make some tea and we’ll see what we can figure out, okay?”

Scrubbing a hand over his face, Sirius leveraged himself back upright, but didn’t follow when Remus turned farther into the house.

“You know you don’t need to do this for me,” he said softly, trying to give Remus an out if he wanted to take it.

“I know,” Remus said, not turning back around. “But you’re too pretty to look that sad, and you haven’t tried to hurt me yet.”

“First you think I’m a ghost, then you think I’m pseudo-stalking you, but you still think I’m pretty enough to help?”

The smirk Remus threw over his shoulder was half inviting, half taunting, and wholey made Sirius want to chase after him. “What can I say, you’re my type.” Turning back around without checking if Sirius was following him, Remus added, “Besides, you’re the one who’s stuck on this stalking thing.”

Trying very hard not to watch Remus’ arse as he walked, Sirius swallowed a chuckle. “But you don’t deny the ghost part?” Remus didn’t answer.

The hallway that Sirius was following Remus down was narrow, but lushly lined with a heavy carpet that looked like it would have been at home in Grimmauld Place, and Sirius tried not to see his family out of the corner of his eye, through every half-closed doorway and poorly lit hallway. 

Dark wood-paneled walls felt like they were closing in on Sirius, but a few more steps and the hallway bloomed open into a large, well-lit kitchen, with deep green curtains and marble counters.

Remus pulled a kettle off a hook on the wall, filled it from the large sink, and placed it on the stove, before pulling open a wood cabinet that matched the hallway walls and pulling out several canisters of tea, all of which had the labels peeled off in fading strips until there was nothing left but white fuzz and the faded memory of where a label had once been.

“Help yourself,” Remus said, waving a hand in the direction of the canisters.

Sirius opened them one at a time and sniffed, trying to figure out what his choices were, before giving up and just picking one. There was a reason James was in charge of the flavor choices at Hind and Hound, and it had to do with more than just his reliability.

Dropping into a seat at a large wooden kitchen table that looked to Sirius like it would be at home in any formal dining room, Remus leaned his head into one of his hands and kicked out a second seat, watching Sirius, head tipped back, long lines of his neck curled to the side.

Sirius flung himself into the seat before he did something stupid.

“So, what are you actually doing here,” Remus asked, still watching Sirius.

“Well, to be honest, I’m not sure how much choice I have. I fall asleep, here I am.” Sirius braced himself for the argument about sleeping versus waking again, but it never came. 

Instead, Remus was watching him with little lines between his eyes, head cocked for a moment before he spoke.

“And if you did have a choice?”

“If I had a choice, I probably wouldn’t be stalking you at work,” Sirius said softly, and startled a little when Remus’ face closed off, eyes drooping, the corners of his mouth pinching down. “But I would probably be asking you on a date, instead. Get to know you in a slightly more traditional method.”

“You... really?”

“You sound surprised.”

Remus shrugged a little and looked away. “Guys like you don’t usually go for guys like me.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by _guys like me_ or _guys like you_ , but I don’t really care. I’m going to find some way to prove to you that _I_ am interested in _you_ ” He paused, then gave Remus a careful smile. “Well, as much as I can be without getting to know you yet.”

Just then the kettle starting screeching, making Sirius jump a little and then start chuckling when it looked like Remus did the same thing.

Remus slid off the seat and took the kettle off the heat, pouring water for them both and then coming to join Sirius back at the table, sliding his chair a little closer than it had been.

“I think I’m willing to work with that.”

Completely ignoring the tea, Sirius slid a hand across the table and Remus took it without hesitation, making Sirius smile a little helplessly. “I’ve got to be honest with you, though,” Sirius said slowly, watching as Remus’ face crumpled into something serious and wary. “I’m kind of fighting not to picture you naked right now.”

Remus blinked, hard, and then started laughing, his cheeks turning faintly pink. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Does that mean I might get a chance at that?”

“Buy me dinner first and we’ll see.”

“Can I, maybe, at least get to kiss you?”

The pink grew steadily more pronounced. “Yeah, I think that can be arranged.”

They both leaned in a little too fast so that they bumped noses, but Remus slid a hand into Sirius’ hair and angled his head so that they slotted together, and Sirius caught his breath, tasting tea on Remus’ tongue.

It was awkward, from their seats, but Sirius broke the kiss to stand up, drawing Remus after him and then leaning back in for a second kiss, bringing a hand up to wrap around Remus’ waist, tugging him in until they were pressed together.

There was heat creeping up the back of Sirius’ neck and he was starting to question his ability to wait until he had the chance to buy Remus dinner. The way Remus pressed into him was making his head static out, crackling away until everything was blank.

It was only when he drew back to gasp in air that Sirius realized that the crackling was coming from somewhere else, and that the air he was drawing in tasted faintly of smoke.  
“Fuck,” he hissed.

“Mmm,” Remus murmured, nosing at the edge of his jaw.

“No, Remus, something is wrong. I smell smoke.”

Remus’ head snapped up immediately, whipping around. Sirius stumbled back, looking around and spotting the first lick of flames sliding under a closed door off the hallway, just barely still in sight from where they were seated.

“Is there a fire extinguisher around here or something?” Sirius asked, grabbing Remus’ hand to keep him from rushing towards the fire.

Remus shook his head, looking around wild-eyed. “It expired last summer. Jessup promised he’d replace it, but it should be on the wall right there,” he pointed to an empty hook beside the stove where the wall was a slightly lighter shade of pale green.

“Well, then we had best get out of here. Call for help.”

Remus nodded, heading towards the phone hanging on the wall across the room. One of those old corded affairs that Sirius was a little shocked to still see working, despite the early year. “Let me just –”

“Nope, not a chance,” Sirius hissed, grabbing Remus by the arm. “You can call for help from someplace that isn’t _literally burning down_. Let’s get outside.”

The heat was climbing, and Sirius was starting to have difficulty breathing, trying not to cough and expend the oxygen he was pulling through the slowly thickening smoke. Choking, he tried to drag Remus in the direction of the exit, but before they could get there, the door in the hallway collapsed and flames spilled out into the hallway, barricading them in the kitchen.

“We’re going to have to go out the window,” Remus growled, voice low and raspy through the suddenly billowing grey clouds.

Following Remus to the one window over the sink, they tried to pry it open, but the wooden frame had swollen in the heat and wouldn’t budge.

“Break it,” Sirius said, trying not to panic. He was still fighting to keep from coughing, but it was becoming harder. 

Remus flung open a cabinet and pulled out a heavy pot, swinging it at the window. Starbursts of glass exploded out everywhere, sparkling out the window and blowing back in at them.

The sudden burst of cold air to the face made Sirius gasp involuntarily, sucking in a lungful of smoke and then he was choking, doubled over. However, the fresh oxygen turned out to be a bad idea, because the fire, searching for fuel, rushed into the kitchen, licking at the walls and charring everything around them. The world was slowly turning black and white, mostly shades of grey soot and charcoal, smoke filled with bright bursts of red.

“There isn’t time,” Remus shouted over the hissing, snapping, popping of the flames.

The metal on Sirius’ jacket was starting to scorch his skin, and his phone was scalding his hip. He backed up against Remus, leaning shoulder to shoulder watching the advancing inferno helplessly, when he suddenly had an idea.

Pulling his phone out of his pocket he swiped it open, noting that it still turned on, and even though he couldn’t read the screen he could still speak.

“Text James!” he shouted.

“What are you doing?” Remus hissed, grabbing his arm.

“James, if you get this, I need you to _wake me up!_ ” The phone was starting to burn his hand, the metal casing too hot to really hold. “Send!” He dropped the phone just before his flesh began to sizzle.

“Sirius, what are you doing?” Remus asked again, staring at him wide eyed.

“Trying to save us! Hold on tight. Please don’t let go, no matter what!” Sirius wrapped his arms as tightly around Remus as he could and hoped that this would work, and that he wasn’t making a huge mistake.

Remus clung to him, coughing into his shoulder, when Sirius’ phone began to ring and everything went black.

*****

Choking. He was still choking. There was a weight on his chest, and Sirius couldn’t find any air.

Shoving at whatever it was that was sitting on his chest, he pried his eyes open, coughing and spluttering. Everything was fuzzy, and for a brief moment Sirius panicked that he was still trapped in the flames. Flinging himself upright, he gasped, drawing in a full breath of solid, clean air.

“What the fuck is going on, mate?” The sound of James’ voice was grounding, and Sirius took a couple of extra deep gasps of air, trying to steady his racing heart.

Ignoring James, he looked around, frantic, until he realized that the weight that had been sitting on his chest was a still passed out Remus.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Sirius whispered, dropping down next to Remus, and checking for a pulse. Remus’ heart was steady beneath his fingertips, and slowly, while Sirius watched, Remus opened his eyes.

“Are we dead?”

“Sirius?” James hissed, warily, eyeing Remus.

Slinging an arm around Remus’ shoulders under the guise of helping him sit up, but mostly to feel him alive and solid in the waking world, Sirius grinned. His hip was still bruised, his hand was singed and he’d probably be coughing for the next few weeks. But they were alive and solid and awake, and that was more than enough. “No, Remus, we aren’t dead, just awake.”

“You weren’t kidding about the sleeping thing, were you?” Remus asked, voice full of wonder as he looked around Sirius’ bedroom with wide eyes and a slowly blooming smile.

“Okay, Sirius, I get that there’s a pretty boy in your bed, but would you please focus long enough to tell me _what the fuck is going on around here?_ ” James growled, swatting Sirius on the back of his head.

“James, my dearest, bestest mate in the whole world, I’d like to introduce you to Remus Lupin. Quite literally the man of my dreams.”


End file.
